


Your World Is Ending

by FuchsiaMae



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Ficlet Collection, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2019-08-22 11:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16596914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuchsiaMae/pseuds/FuchsiaMae
Summary: Moments at the end of Cave Johnson's life, from Caroline's perspective.





	1. Chapter 1

Your name is Caroline, and your world is ending. 

Things have been bad for a long time. In ‘67 you celebrated twenty years of progress and science. You were on top of the world. You thought '68 was just a rough patch when it came – but '69 was worse, and the seventies after that. It’ll get better, you kept saying. It has to get better. It didn’t.

All your hard work slowed your descent, but didn’t stop it. It wasn’t enough. You failed your company, and now you have to watch it nosedive into oblivion. You failed it.

You failed him.

Even with all your struggles, the next fifteen years weren’t so bad because he was beside you. He gave you hope and strength, courage to carry on – the others thought him delusional, but you thought him inspiring. Together you could do anything.

But then he got sick, and everything changed.

The last few years have been agony. You’ve had to watch him decline as the poison gets to him – as his handsome features grow hollow, and the muscle wastes from his once strong frame. His hair greys and thins, his voice weakens, and that damn  _coughing_  – you can’t stand that coughing. The voice of a leader that once boomed like a lion’s roar should not be marred by coughing. Every time he asks for his pain pills, it cuts you to the core. 

He’s the most amazing person you’ve ever known. He’s the center of your world. And he’s slowly but steadily fading away. 

It’s like watching the death of the sun.

You know you’ll never be able to continue without him. He expects you to, and you’ll try – for the good of the company – but it’ll only be delaying the inevitable. He is the fire in Aperture’s belly. Without him it’ll only be you dragging along an empty shell.

You’ll try, but you know it’ll kill you too. 

Your name is Caroline, and your world is ending. 


	2. Chapter 2

His hands feel like paper. He had such strong hands, so warm when they touched you, and now they feel like paper. Thin and dry and lifeless. His eyes, dim and sunken deep in their sockets, look exhausted. Overwhelmed. It scares you.

One day those eyes won’t recognize you. The doctors say his brain is getting worse, and fast. One day soon he won’t know who you are. That scares you even more. 

You hold his paper-thin hand a little too tightly, and blink back the tears in your eyes. You manage a smile for him. Be brave for him. Don’t let him see you’re scared. 

Hand in hand, you follow alongside as the nurses wheel the hospital bed into another room. The dialysis machine is familiar now. You watch as they hook him up, and take your usual seat beside him. He’s used to this too, barely paying attention to the tubes in his arms. He looks so tired. Once the nurses are gone, you stroke his hair, and he musters a little smile for you. It’s barely a shadow of the sparkling grin you loved, but it’s something. You kiss his forehead and squeeze his hand. 

It isn’t long before he drifts off to sleep. Now it’s safe. Without a sob, without a sound, without so much as a hitching breath, you let the tears stream freely down your face. You’ve become an expert at letting no one see you cry.


	3. Chapter 3

You’re  _old_. 

He still calls you “kiddo,” and it’s sweet, but the mirror isn’t so flattering. Your lips lost their fullness long ago, and the skin around your eyes sags into crows’ feet. Wrinkles furrow your forehead and line the corners of your mouth. Your dark hair is going grey. The whole picture is striking visual evidence of thirty-three years at your stressful job.

 _Thirty-three years_. Much more than half your life. 

Thirty-three years ago you were eighteen and full of promise. Twenty-five years ago you were twenty-six, and he called you beautiful. At thirty-five, you could run the world. At forty-five, you were weatherbeaten, but strong.

You’ll be fifty-two this year. Now you’re just tired. 


	4. Chapter 4

You haven’t slept properly in months. The makeshift bed you’ve made out of a blanket and two metal chairs is a far cry from luxury, but that’s not the real problem. Your schedule demands more waking hours than ever, but that’s not it either.

The problem is that you’re scared. If you drift off for even a few moments at the wrong time, he could slip away before you know it. 

The constant vigil is exhausting, but you stay with him. Where else would you be? In your office? You can do paperwork just as well from the medical wing. In the executive suite you share, trying to forget that the bed beside you shouldn’t be empty? That would fray your nerves even more. You’d spend your “relaxation” fretting from a distance. Better to be at his side. You belong at his side. 

He knows that as well as you do. He always has.  _It’s you and me against the world, kiddo_ , he’d say with his sparkling smile.  _You and me, we can do anything. Dunno what I’d do without you_. 

Remembering makes the words feel so distant, as if they belonged to a whole other lifetime – but in that one way, nothing has changed. He needed you then. He needs you now.

Worried coworkers hover around you, trying to pull you away. They have your best interests in mind. You’re tired, they say. We have doctors for this. It’s not your job to nursemaid him. Get some rest. Go. 

No.

Because the instant he opens his eyes, you’re the one he asks for. He gets angry when you’re not there, even if you’ve only stepped out for a minute – because he’s scared too. He’s scared, and he doesn’t want to be alone. And you’re the only one he trusts. You’re his girl. 

You’re not going anywhere. Not while he needs you.


	5. Chapter 5

You don’t sleep well anymore.

In your nightmares you hold him while coughing rips his lungs. His blood spatters on your skin, mixes in the tears that streak your face. Awake you’re stoic and strong, but in dreams you cry and cry and cry. You shake with sobs, you scream in rage, you hold him and you cry.

Every night you wake shivering and gasping for breath. Your noises wake him – he sleeps lightly now. He worries. It drains you to reassure him time after time, but you do it. You have to.  _Nothing’s wrong, sir. Go back to sleep_.

What else can you say?  _Stop dying, you’re driving me crazy?_ No.

Nothing’s wrong. Go back to sleep. 

He settles down, shuts his eyes, lets himself drift off. You don’t. You can’t. You’d rather lie awake forever than watch him die again.

You’ve seen it so many times in dreams that you can’t help but wonder – when it happens in waking, will it be a relief?

You almost want to hope so.

You doubt it.


	6. Chapter 6

He’s dying. This whole place is dying. You wish you were dying too.

You can’t think straight anymore because you’ve spent too many nights watching him sleep, because closing your eyes might mean losing him, because maybe if you keep watch every moment he won’t slip away. Because you’ve spent too many hours crying alone in the darkness of the janitor’s closet where no one can see you, because you’ve kept up appearances for too damn long.

Isn’t a woman allowed to hurt when her whole world is crumbling? Is it a crime to cry when everything you love is about to leave you?

And you do cry, in loud, ugly sobs, with tears streaming down your face. You hide in the closet and cry like a child. What else can you do?

Nothing’s going to be okay. Not ever. Not ever, ever again. 

Your boss is dying. Your life is dying. All you want now is to go with them, to lie down at his side and never get up – but you can’t. You have responsibilities. You have to do your job.

And now your job is to watch them die. 

Nothing’s going to be okay. Not ever. Not ever, ever, ever. 


	7. Chapter 7

He always liked to sleep holding you. It made him feel strong. He would wrap you in his arms, and nuzzle your hair, and pull your body close to his. He never said anything about it, but you could always feel the protectiveness in his embrace. It spoke loud enough for you to hear.  _I’ll keep you safe_.

You didn’t need protecting, but you let him do it anyway. It was nice to feel his strength. 

Tonight he falls asleep quickly after his last dose of medication. You stay awake for hours, keeping yourself busy with test results and charts – keeping your mind off the man in the bed. But finally your eyes grow tired, and you catch yourself rereading the same chunk of text over and over and over. No point in continuing now.

You put the papers away, turn off the lights, and slip under the sheets beside him, trying to ignore the rattle in his breath. He lies curled on his side. You curl around him. He feels fragile in your arms, like his bones are made of eggshells – a shadow of the man who once held you so tight.

You pull him close anyway. That’s your job, isn’t it? To take care of him? Thirty years together and you’ve never failed him, not once.

You won’t fail him now. You can’t.

 _I’ll keep you safe_.

Even in your head, the lie rings hollow and cold. 


End file.
